20 Tips on How to Stop Worrying

by robertr

June 24th, 2009

7

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Dale Carnegie wrote one of his books to show that life is very much what we make of it. It’s all about our choices everyday. Here are some quotes from Carnegie:

1. ” If you have a worry problem, do these three things: 1. Ask yourself: “What is the worst that can possibly happen?” 2. Prepare to accept it if you have to. 3. Them calmly proceed to improve on the worst.” (Carnegie 49)

2. ” Why does such a simple thing as keeping busy help to drive out anxiety? Because of a law- one of the most fundamental laws ever revealed by psychology. And that law is: that is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than one thing at any given time.” (Carnegie 50)

3. “Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” (Carnegie 53)

4. “All the King’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past back together again. So let’s remember: Don’t try to saw sawdust.” (Carnegie 54)

10. “When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means- we have everything to gain!” (Carnegie 64)

11. “Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?” (Carnegie 65)

12. “If you were to read everything that has ever been written about worry by the great philosophers of the universe, you would never read anything more profound than ‘Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them’ and ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk.” (Carnegie 67)

13. “If you have worries, there is no better way to eliminate them than by walking them off. Just take them out for a walk. They may take wings and fly away!” (Carnegie 68)

14. “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the sleep.” (Carnegie 70)

15. “Give your problem all the thought you possibly can before a solution is reached. But when the matter is settled and over with, worry not at all.” (Carnegie 71)

16. “If we can’t have all we want, let’s not poison our days with worry and resentment. Let’s be good to ourselves. Let’s be philosophical. And philosophy, according to Epictetus, boils down to this: ‘ The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.’” (Carnegie 76)

17. “Put a BIG, broad, honest-to-God smile on your face; throw back your shoulders; take a good, deep breath; and sing a snatch of a song. If you can’t sing whistle. If you can’t whistle, hum. You will quickly discover that it is physically impossible to remain blue or depressed while you are acting out the symptoms of being radiantly happy!” (Carnegie 56)

18. “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our own days and nights into a hellish turmoil.” (Carnegie 55)

19. “About ninety percent of the things in our lives are right and about ten percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is to concentrate on the ninety percent that are right and ignore the ten percent that are wrong. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the ten percent that are wrong and ignore the ninety percent that are glorious.” (Carnegie 52)

20. “If you and I don’t keep busy- if we sit around and brood- we will hatch out a whole flock of what Charles Darwin used to call the ‘wibber-gibbers.’ And the ‘wibber gibbers’ are not but old-fashioned gremlines that will run us hollow and destroy our power of action and our power of will.” (Carnegie 51)